Movie Review: 17 Again

17 Again (2009) 

Directed by Burr Steers 

Written by Jason Filardi 

Starring Zac Efron, Matthew Perry, Leslie Mann, Thomas Lennon, Michelle Trachtenberg 

Release Date April 17th, 2009 

Published April 18th, 2009 

Zac Efron is a star. Granted, his fanbase hasn't passed the 6th grade yet but still. The kid has got It, that indefinable quality. That thing that draws people to you and makes them want to follow you wherever you go. Zac Efron has that talent and when he masters it he will be a huge star, 6th Grade and up.

17 Again stars Zac Efron as Mike who in High School was captain of the basketball team on the fast track to a scholarship, college and who knows from there. Then, his girlfriend Scarlett, played as a teen by Allison Miller, tells him she's pregnant. Mid-game Mike throws it all away and leaves to be with Scarlett.

20 years later and 2 kids later Mike, now played by Matthew Perry, is miserable. He regrets walking out of that game and not getting his scholarship. Having immediately taken a miserable job right out of high school, he finds himself a sales driod at a pharmaceutical company where he is passed over for promotions by people just out of college.

His misery has cost him his marriage and kids. Scarlett (Leslie Mann) resents being treated as the reason Mike is a failure. Thus, she has started divorce proceedings. His kids, 17 year old Maggie (Michelle Trachtenberg) and 16 year old Alex (Sterling Knight) are basically strangers. She's dating the high school bully while Alex is getting beat up by said bully.

Tossed out of the house, Mike is staying with his best pal from high school Ned (Thomas Lennon), a nerd turned multi-millionaire nerd. Ned sleeps in a replica Speeder from Stars Wars, what does that tell you. He too is somewhat irritated by Mike's sadsack qualities but is thankfully more tolerant than most.

One day when Mike goes to his old High School to see his kids he meets a kindly janitor (Brian Doyle Murray) and confesses he would give anything to do it all over again. Later, seeing the janitor on the ledge of a bridge in a heavy rainstorm, Mike races to stop the old man only to fall in the river himself. The next morning he finds he is 17 Again only he didn't go back in time.

Now, he has the chance to be the Big Man on Campus again while really getting to know his two kids and see what modern high school is like. Oh, and then there is Scarlett and some very awkward moments where the word cougar and and the vulgar term Milf are uttered. Ugh.

Ok, so the movie 17 Again is not a very original or smart movie. You can get that quite easy from my description. And yet, I still recommend it. Yes, I recommend 17 Again. I do it because Zac Efron is a star. The kid comes into his own in this movie. He has presence, charisma and a terrific talent for self deprecating humor.

The self deprecation can be deceiving among the very good looking. For some it can seem condescending. For Efron it's an effortless goofball quality that plays very genuine. Indeed there is an earnestly unaffected quality to Efron in this film that is missing from the skill-less High School Musical films.

Those movies were directed with a minimum of talent for storytelling and character development. Director Burr Steers on the other hand has little to rely on other than storytelling and character development and thus coaxes from Efron a performance that carries 17 Again over even the largest of pitfall cliches.

Do not be mistaken, 17 Again is far from great. It's far too pat and predictable to break out of its genre constrictions. It comes down to Efron entirely to make this work and that he pulls it off is a true test of his talent and star power. He may have become well known thanks to High School Musical but Zac Efron becomes a star in 17 Again.

Movie Review: Black Christmas

Black Christmas (2006) 

Directed by Glenn Morgan 

Written by Glenn Morgan

Staring Katie Cassidy, Michelle Trachtenberg, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Oliver Hudson, Lacey Chabert

Release Date December 25th, 2006

Published December 25th, 2006

In 1974 Black Christmas shocked audiences with a Christmas based, blood soaked massacre. The film was only notable for its Christmas horror setting and was soon forgotten. 32 years later a pair of shock masters, Harvey and Bob Weinstein, who know a good marketing hook when they see one, acquired the remake rights and rushed out new version of Black Christmas just in time for the holiday season.

Crafted by one of the minds behind the Final Destination series, Glen Morgan, Black Christmas is, once again, only notable for its release date. Though soaked in bloody, horror film tradition, Black Christmas is simply yet another rehash of horror movie cliches.

Michelle Trachtenberg, of Buffy The Vampire Slayer fame, heads a cast of pretty faces as a sorority sister who finds her self stuck on campus for Christmas. Along with her sisters played by Katie Cassidy, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Final Destination 3), Lacey Chabert (Party of Five) and their house mother Mrs. Mac (Andrea Martin, star of the original Black Christmas), she is exchanging gifts and trading stories when a strange phone call sets off a series of horrifying deaths.

It seems that the girls sorority house was once the home of a serial killer who killed and ate his mother on Christmas day; some 20 years earlier. Now, having escaped from a mental institution, Billy (Robert Mann) has come home and is ready to make the sisters his new family. Billy isn't alone, the daughter he had by his own mother is also home to get in on the carnage.

It's a creepy idea but in execution, Black Christmas is little more than a collection of horror movie cliches. Nubile flesh is modestly displayed. Girls run upstairs when they should run outside. Cops are incapacitated and the killers make their murders more elaborate and gruesome when a simpler approach might save some time and work more effectively.

I was surprised to find this collection of cliches was directed by Glen Morgan who with his producing partner James Wong worked on the X-Files TV show and created the clever, if over done, Final Destination series. Morgan's direction of Destination 1 & 3 was, at the very least witty, if not all that frightening. Going for classic slasher movie scares in Black Christmas, Morgan loses the wit in favor of more blood. He should have stuck with his wits.

The cast of Black Christmas reads like the rejected casting for the WB teen drama One Tree Hill. Michelle Trachtenberg, former Harriet The Spy and Buffy The Vampire Slayer alum, Lacey Chabert, the forgotten member of the Party of Five cast, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, star of Final Destination 3 and....nothing else, and Oliver Hudson who knows his way around a teen drama, he guest starred on Dawson's Creek as a wrong side of the tracks bad boy.

This Clearasil approved cast is pleasant to look at but their acting leaves much to be desired. Not that Black Christmas calls for much acting beyond run, scream and die painfully. Though the film does carry an R-rating, the fresh faced cast is not called upon for the kind of nudity that might give a slight erotic charge to all of the carnage. There are glimpses of a naked back in the shower, but only hints of the kind of exposure we are used to in the slasher genre.

Black Christmas pales in comparison to the creepy 1974 original, though that film isn't all that great either. Too weak kneed for a typical exploitation film, but too bloody for the dull PG-13 lot that has been stinking up the horror genre, Black Christmas inhabits an unhappy middle-ground between enjoyable crap and just plain crap. Any less interesting and Wes Craven would have slapped his name on it as producer.